Note that CPAN does not build these packages: we just provide the
hyperlinks. So please don't ask to build a package for you: you have
access to the plaftorm, not us. Also, this page lists operating
systems, not hardware platforms: therefore Perl packages for, say,
Linux PDAs or SONY Playstation, or XBox, or toasters, or so
forth running Linux are not "ports" as such.

There are, of course, exceptions to the above: if for some reason
getting packages for the particular platform is hard (of example not
that many people have the compiler environment for the platform, or
the compiler environment is a tricky cross-compilation environment, or
there is no common repository for sharing packages), CPAN can consider
hosting packages or adding links for such platforms. But if there is
a commonly known repository to get packages in that particular
platform, please first prefer uploading your Perl package there one
instead of CPAN, because that common repository is where the users
will go first. We can add a link to this page pointing to that common
repository, of course.

Note that this page is exceptional in CPAN in that we list some
shareware and commercial software when it comes to Perl editors,
IDEs, and SDKs. Anywhere else in CPAN we strongly disapprove any non-free
(as in beer) software.

This document contains pointers to binary distributions of Perl.
However:

Use The Source

If you are on a UNIX, I strongly suggest that you compile Perl
yourself from the source code
distribution. This way you always get the latest Perl and you can
configure Perl as you like and you avoid the security risks inherent
in installing binary distributions.
If you are on Windows or MacOS, and you do not think you have any
special needs, you will probably be perfectly happy with a binary
build.
See also the disclaimer. If you have UNIX,
or Windows, MS-DOS, VMS, Amiga, QNX, Plan9, MPE/iX, OS/390, BeOS, and a
C compilation environment, you should be all set for compilation, the
source code kit contains the compilation instructions. For Macintosh
you need a little bit more. If your platform is
something else, read on.

Some architectures also have available binary distributions for the
most useful and popular Perl modules (such as Tk,
MD5, GD). Some of the Perl binary
distributions include such module distributions. For some
architectures I also list sites that have other useful (but
unrelated-to-Perl) software available. You can for example try
finding C compilers (gcc is available on many
platforms) or archival and compression tools (what to do about.tar.gz, for
example).

BSDI BSD/OS

Coherent

Cygwin

The easiest way to install Perl in Cygwin is simply to use
the standard Cygwin installation
utility. Just follow the link and click on the
"Install Cygwin now" icon. It will first ask questions
about where to install and from where to install, and
then you'll get to select what to install/update.

HP-UX

Recent Perl binaries for
HP-UX 10.20, 11.00, 11.11, 11.23, and 11.31 in depots including recent
versions of modules like DBI and Tk. All Perls are prepared to build
DBD-Oracle (Perl needs to be linked with certain libraries). This site has
a lot of HP-UX Perl related information.

Japanese

JPerl is a port of the Perl 5 that can handle the Japanese legacy encodings
Japanese EUC and Shift-JIS (aka MS-Kanji).

NOTE! As of Perl 5.8.0 it is suggested that instead of JPerl (which
is based on a quite old release of Perl) you should just use Perl 5.8.0,
since it can do all that JPerl did, and more. With the source code kit of
Perl 5.8.0 comes the README.jp file, which details the capabilities. When
Perl 5.8.0 gets installed, the file gets installed as perljp, so
perldoc or man or equivalents should be able to find it.

If your Linux distribution doesn't already contain or have a
reasonably recent Perl release (as of April 2004, Perl 5.8.4
and 5.6.2 are just out), are you certain you have chosen a good
distribution? A distribution that contains essential tools like Perl?
A distribution that keeps its packages up-to-date?

For a long time I tried maintaining the links to the Perl
distributions of at least the major Linux distributions but that
turned out to be rather frustrating exercise
because the vendors/organizations
seem to be restructuring their sites constantly.

Not all Linux distributions are or will stay alive.

You
have Linux, which means that you have a full compilation
environment, which means you can use the
source code.

Perl is known to be a standard component of the following distributions:

Debian

OS Name / version

Default Perl version

Woody (3.0)

5.6.1

Etch (4.0)

5.8.8

Lenny (5.0)

5.10.0

Squeeze (6.0)

5.10.1+patches

Last updated: 2011-03-13

Gentoo: 5.8.2 as of April 2004

Mandrake: 5.6.1 since Mandrake 8.1, 5.8.1 since
Mandrake 9.2

RedHat: 5.8.0 both in RH 8 and RH 9, 5.6.1 in RHEL
2.1, 5.8.0 prerelease in RHEL 3.0, originally 5.8.1 in
FC1, later "erratad" to 5.8.3

Slackware: 5.6.1 since Slackware 8.0, 5.8.0 since
Slackware 9.0

SuSE: 5.8.0 as of SuSE 8.1, 5.8.1 as of SuSE
9.0

Some Linux environments are somewhat tricky to compile software
to because they are cross-compilation environments.

Building the source requires you to have also installed
the "Mac OS X Developer tools" available on recent OSX install DVDs,
alternatively they can be downloaded from
Apple Developer (free registration).
(Note: in 10.3 you should also install the optional
BSD SDK, otherwise installing new Perl modules won't work.)

NetBSD

Novell NetWare

NetWare sources for Perl 5.8 has been integrated with the Perl standard
source code distribution.

The Perl for NetWare binaries are available on the Novell NDK
site site and at the following location, too: http://www.cpan.org/ports/netware/
(you probably are already there). Once you subscribe to the NDK you can
download many other NDK components. The NDK site contains useful
documentation and installation instructions.

mod_perl, perl MySQL and other extensions to Perl are available as
part of the NDK Perl 5.8 download. Additional Perl modules that are
not part of the NetWare binaries can be downloaded from CPAN.

IBM OS/400

Perl 5.005_03, Perl-DBD, Perl-DBI, and several other
development and programming tools are available as
iSeries Tools for Developers
PRPQ 5799-PTL.

PalmOS

(No known Perl binary distributions)

(No known Perl ports at all, to be more exact.)

Plan 9

Go to the
Bell labs Plan 9 site
and click on the "Additional Software", which will have among
other things a Perl 5.8.0. Note that you'll have to accept
the Plan 9 license before getting to the additional software.

Symbian

Tandem/Compaq

Tru64

(Formerly known as Digital UNIX formerly known as DEC OSF/1)

Starting from Tru64 V5.0 Perl 5 ships standard with Tru64 as
/usr/bin/perl, but the runtime support (modules and documentation)
are in a separate optional subset.
(As of Tru64 V5.0 5.004_04, but 5.005_03 is on the supplementary
freeware CD-ROM.)

UNIX

Traditionally UNIX was synonymous with C and a C
compiler. You should be able to take any platform that calls itself
UNIX and compile Perl on it without problems from the
source code.
(If this fails, your vendor is likely to be cheating you
by not supplying you with a fully functional ANSI-capable
compiler. They call this an "unbundled" compiler
and "progress", too, by giving the customer "more options",
in other words, making you pay more.)
Therefore, nowadays, for various reasons, people
do ask for binary distributions.

Stratus VOS

Starting from Perl 5.005_03 the VOS support has been integrated to the Perl
standard source code distribution. Since June 2002, Stratus supplies a
fully-supported copy of Perl 5.6.1 in Release 2.0.1 of their GNU C++ &
GNU Tools product, which runs on the Continuum product line and requires
VOS Release 14.5.0 or later. If you do not wish to build Perl from source,
or cannot meet the prerequisites for this product, or need a newer release
of Perl, you can obtain binaries of Perl from Stratus:

Stratus,
save.evf.gz format. From Stratus but not supported by
Stratus, runs on all Stratus platforms and many releases, but is not
fully functional (because of the incomplete POSIX support it uses)
(available from the same place). (Perl 5.8.0 as of August 2002)
Also other software available.

Stratus,
save.evf.gz format. From Stratus but not supported by
Stratus, runs on Stratus Continuum (HP PA-RISC) and VOS Release 14.3.0
or later, fully functional. (Perl 5.8.0 as of August 2002) Also
other software available.

If you want to compile Perl for Win32 yourself, only the
Microsoft Visual C/C++ is actively supported, but if you want
to pay for your compiler the also Borland C++ Builder Studio
should work reasonably well. MinGW is
a free option that also has been known to work.
The Open Watcom,
the Digital Mars,
and lcc compiler
are available (the last one for non-commercial use only), but there are
no reports of Perl being built with them (patches welcomed by perl5-porters).

(Especially) if you are accustomed to Windows you might be
interested in various IDEs for Perl,
in alphabetical order:

IBM z/OS (OS/390)

Starting from Perl 5.005_02 the OS/390 (also known as OS/390,
also known as Open Edition, also known as MVS) support has been
integrated to the Perl standard source code distribution.

NOTE!
As of June 2006, IBM has an official version of Perl 5.8.7 for z/OS.

NOTE!
As of November 2003, the Perl 5.8.1
source builds and tests at better than 99% on z/OS (OS/390).
(The previous 5.6.x versions don't work well on EBCDIC platforms,
and 5.8.1 builds better than 5.8.0 did.)

The inclusion or exclusion of any site, application, or product does
not represent any special endorsement or discrimination, nor is any
attempt at comprehensiveness made, just an educated guess at which
ones could possibly be useful.

None of the CPAN maintainers, Perl developers or contributors, or any
entities publishing this list in any media, will be liable for any
damage caused by the transfer, storage, installation, or use of these
distributions. It's your risk alone.

The same in legalese:

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR DISTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY
FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, ITS DOCUMENTATION, OR ANY
DERIVATIVES THEREOF, EVEN IF THE AUTHORS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

THE AUTHORS AND DISTRIBUTORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTIES,
INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND
NON-INFRINGEMENT. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ON AN ``AS IS'' BASIS, AND
THE AUTHORS AND DISTRIBUTORS HAVE NO OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE
MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS.